Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Woohoo! It's summertime, and we're SUPER excited that it means our fabric is shipping SOON! We can't wait to see what you all will make with it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

(Ok, I don't live on a ranch, but you know what I mean.)

I've been doing some "kick back" summer sewing. Last summer I made a couple of these fun upcycle skirts using old t-shirts I was going to throw out. INSTEAD, I turned them into my most favorite summer skirts! Since then, I started a pile of T's that might also become skirts.

So I thought I'd share a little tutorial on how I made mine, in case, you know, you want to salvage a few cute T's and make one too!

First, grab a skirt you love to make yourself a pattern. This one happens to be from Old Navy and is soft and comfy.

Next, get out your big roll of freezer paper (I know you have one!)

I cut off two big sheets from my roll and ironed them together for the width I needed.

After laying my skirt on top of the freezer paper, I cut out the shape of the skirt. Then put it back on top of the skirt to decide what kind of design I wanted to make with my t-shirts. I drew my lines right on the freezer paper.

Here's a close up of how I marked what I wanted where. Make sure you label each section, and number them, so you know how to put this puzzle back together!

Voila! Here's my pattern. This skirt is the same on both front and back, so I traced another piece of freezer paper for the front as well.

Next step, lay out t-shirts to get the look you're going for. Then, set those pieces aside and cut your pattern up along the drawn lines.

Now lay your pattern pieces on your cut up t-shirts. Here's what I love about freezer paper, you can iron it right on there and forget about pins! Especially helpful with knits since they have stretch.

Here I cut out my first piece, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance as I cut. Remember, no seam allowance was added to the pattern, so it's important that you add it here! Unless you don't mind your skirt being a little more snug.

A couple more pieces laid out...

La-de-da, I had lots of t-shirt scraps all over the place!

OK, once I had all my pieces cut out, I sewed those babies up! You can use a sewing machine to do this, but I used a serger, leaving the seams on the outside to give it a kind of cool look. At least, I think it's cool.

Voila! There's the back all serged together!

And here's the front!

You can see that I used one shirt as a "focus shirt", and designed the rest of the skirt around it. In this case, the stripes with cute flowers.

And here's me...rocking my new Upcycled Skirt!

And I do rock it, don't I?

Best part is? I saved all my freezer paper pattern pieces and used them to make more! How cool is that?

Now it's your turn! What will you make with your old T's? If you make a skirt like mine, I'd love to see it!